8. The Gibbons in China

Interactions between humans and gibbons have a long history in China, as reflected
in the Chinese literature and art. Especially in early China, gibbons made the objects
of many literary and artistic compositions.

The popularity of captive gibbons being kept as pets appears to go as far back
as written history, although a proverb by the philosopher Huai-nan-tzû (died
122 B.C.) stated: "If you put a gibbon inside a cage, you might as well keep
a pig. It is not because the gibbon is then not clever or swift anymore, but because
he has no opportunity for displaying his abilities" (van Gulik, 1967, p. 40).

The traditional method to catch a live gibbon always consisted in looking for
a female carrying an infant, then killing the mother with an arrow or a poisoned
dart from a blow-pipe and taking the infant still clinging to her when she has fallen
dead onto the ground. Humans often became deeply attached to their pet gibbons. When
a king of the Chou dynasty (i.e. Chuang-wang, 613-591 B.C.) had lost his gibbon,
he had an entire forest laid waste in order to find him.

In ancient China, gibbons were often considered being a symbol of the world of
the supernatural, mysterious and remote from man's daily life. According to Taoist
beliefs harking back to about 150 B.C., the occult powers of gibbons included the
ability to assume human shape and to prolong their life to several hundred years.
Even in later dynasties, gibbons often served as examples for the ideal human existence
and were represented in numerous paintings of varying naturalism (Figure 8.1).

It was, however, first and foremost the gibbon's call that impressed Chinese poets
of succeeding centuries. The songs of gibbons (especially in the famous Yangtze gorges)
were frequently mentioned in poems. The calls were usually associated with sadness
and became a symbol of the melancholy of travelers far from home.

In the 4th century, the poet and musician Yüan Sung wrote (Van Gulik, 1967,
p. 46):

Sad the calls of the gibbons at the three gorges of Pa-tung;
After three calls in the night, tears wet the [traveler's] dress.

Knowledge on the provenance and date of poems and paintings makes it possible
to reconstruct the earlier distribution of gibbons in China and to document what
may be the largest collapse in the distribution area among any group of primates
in historical times (Figure 8.2). The preserved written and painted historical documents
show that in the 10th century, gibbons were distributed over large parts of China
up to the Yellow River. The northern frontier of their range lay apparently around
the 35th parallel of latitude (about the latitude of Kyoto in Japan), and their distribution
area may have covered about three-fourths of China. After the 10th century, the distribution
area of gibbons began to shrink in central China and then in most other parts of
the country. The reduction of the distribution are may largely be due to hunting
and habitat loss. Today, Chinese gibbons are confined to southern Yunnan province
and - in a few individuals - to Hainan island.

Historical Chinese literature and art documents also demonstrate that gibbons
lived in regions where winters were severe, and many poets refer to gibbons seen
in winter. Li Po (701-762 A.D.) wrote the following brief poem on gibbons in southern
Anhui province (Van Gulik, 1967, p. 61):

The splendor of the mountains shivers under the accumulated snow,
Like shadows the gibbons are hanging from the cold branches.

In contrast to gibbons living today, whose distribution is confined to tropical,
subtropical and a few mountain forests, these extinct Chinese gibbons inhabited much
cooler climate zones. We don't know what kind of gibbons these were, and their extinction
leaves many open questions: How did they live in deciduate forests, how could they
survive winter, what did they eat, what was their social structure? These questions
may never be answered.